>> Thursday, May 21, 2009

I’m a little bit of a chicken. And by little bit, I mean huge.
Occasionally, I go to a cafe on campus to buy coffee (cos that’s what collegiates do, apparently), and the same woman serves me nearly every time. The exchange goes a little something like this:

Act 1, Scene 1

It is a bright, sunshiny day. Captain is feeling pleasant and motivated to write. All is well with the world. She steps up to the cafe counter to be served.INCREDIBLY SCRAWNY OLD BIRDLIKE WOMAN WEARING RED LIPSTICK: (silence, staring at Captain)

>> Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Gelatin—Rhymes with "skeleton." Coincidence? I think not. Gelatin is a protein made by boiling cows' and pigs' skin, tendons, ligaments, and bones. Jell-O? Hell, no!

Lard—Lard is such a gross word, it almost makes you wonder why they just don't call it what it is: "Fat from hog abdomens."

Pepsin—If the thought of eating lard turns your stomach, stay away from pepsin, a clotting agent from pigs' stomachs, used in some cheeses and vitamins.

Rennet—Certain words just make you cringe, like coagulate, congeal, clot—which is what rennet, an enzyme taken from baby calves' stomachs, is used for in cheese production.

Stearic Acid—It may sound less gross than "lard," but stearic acid, which often rears its ugly head in chocolate and vitamins, comes from a fatty substance taken from slaughtered pigs' stomachs—or from cows, sheep, or dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters. Still want to chew on that piece of Fido?

Cetyl Palmitate—Check your head if you're using margarine that contains cetyl palmitate, the fancy term for the waxy oil derived from sperm whales' heads or from dolphins. "I can't believe it's not ... oh, wait. It is? Whale head wax?"

Urea—Urea comes from piss and other "bodily fluids." It's used to "brown" baked goods, like pretzels. Um, yeah. And the oven is for ...?

Confession: I would rather stay in with a good book than go and drink myself into an early death on a saturday night.

I realise that in the Under-80's, i'm a minority. And you know what? I'm ok with that. Now I don't mind a gathering, a drink or two maybe (but what's the point? two drinks, I may as well drink something that doesn't taste like gasoline)and no taxi waits. This is something that I would consider "acceptable".

What's not acceptable is:

Someone looking violently close to throwing up on your shoes that are hurting your feet anyway.

Someone looking violently close to punching someone else in the face/stabbing someone else in the throat for daring to glance in the 360-degree view that contains said psychopath.

Chemically 'enhanced' sweaty goggle eyed dancers with glowsticks that look violently close to actually wanting me to join them even though I have no idea who they are.

Bouncers that will kill you. I not lie.

Girls that wear a hanky held together with a paperclip in the middle of winter that push in the nine-mile taxi line shouting 'i'm freezing' and then huddling and whingeing constantly that their feet hurt, they're cold, too many guys were being sleazy jerks.... My brain breaks at this point.

Drinks that taste like they scraped them up off the floor and charged you a week's wages for.

Chicks that glare at you in the toilet line and then in the toilets and make you feel like you'll be glassed at any second, and then schizophrenically squeal about how much they love your bag and can they borrow your lip gloss? You're too relieved at narrowly missing having an eye out and you give it to them.

No vegetarian pizza.

Hangovers that are akin to nuclear fallout. At my age, its inevitable.

I am trying very hard to think of a positive here to counteract all my negative nancy-isms..... Oh! watching plain old drunken people dance and try to get up on stage with the Copperhead Road-playing cover band is usually pretty amusing...

So i'll stick with Proust on the weekend and you can have your goggle eyed sweaty underdressed psychopaths.

Could it have had the same effect without the breastage? Well, to me, yes. I like paintings, I don’t like looking at boobs. Especially when it looks like the subject’s inadvertently had a Tara Reid moment, and they’re on the red carpet at Diddy’s birthday, and they’ve let one slip.